Simon Tomkinson (Member no: 79)

Bryn Celli Ddu

As Bryn Celli Ddu comes into view I’m amazed at how prominent it stands on the landscape and how it commands a view from the top of the surrounding landscape

I had been working in Llandudno for a few days and just before I left I had time to visit this amazing burial chamber. If you get the chance, make sure you take it. Stone lovers will not be disappointed.

Bryn Celli Ddu Burial Chamber is situated just over the bridge into Anglesey. It’s about 30 min drive from Llandudno beachfront. The history can be found on the signs and the reconstruction after excavation was 1929 and it has been preserved ever since. Unlike west Kennet it has had a hole created for light (instead of that weird glass block @WK). It has had one of the stones removed and placed in a museum in Cardiff with a replacement made of concrete. The capstone is huge slab of stone and has three or four huge standing stones at the entrance and the opposite end of chamber.

The weather was moody but dry, the temperature was 12°C and it was 10am in the morning. There is a car park and a short walk to the signposted chamber. The approach was quiet even with the fairly substantial breeze as the pathway was between hedges. As you follow the river up to the site the mind fills with images and thoughts about our ancestors walking along the same river bank with their ritual and ceremony about to start. As Bryn Celli Ddu comes into view I’m amazed at how prominent it stands on the landscape and how it commands a view from the top of the surrounding landscape. There is a rocky crag in the adjacent field, and casts a presence all of its own.

Walk around the circle, breathe the air, take in the silence and the feel of the stones. Walk inside and crouch through the creep into the chamber.

Inside, solitary, senses, feeling and total silence, the tomb of our ancestors…